High

I'm moving

2008-04-22T19:29:00.003-06:00

not just houses but blogs as well. From now on I will be posting at my new address: goingeverywhere.wordpress.com

If you are tired of reading what I write, just "forget" to update your links But if you'd like to find out how taking out the walls in the new house goes; if it snows on our annual canoe trip again this year; and if Zama City is really a city you should check out goingeverywhere.wordpress.com .

Proof

2008-04-13T15:31:00.002-06:00

that spring is actually here! While out biking and geocaching, I found this little beauty, and then many many more. This is a little earlier than my first crocus last year which may be due to the unseasonably warm weather this weekend or the fact I was out in the prairie grasses earlier this time.

If you're like us

2008-04-08T20:37:00.003-06:00

you've probably just been sitting around in someone else's house watching season 2 of Dark Angel and counting the hours until 12pm on April 30. But don't worry, if Max and Logan's forbidden love isn't keeping you wide awake at night with excitement, this will: the Terex Titan Cam, live from "the South Eastern corner of the Province of British Columbia, Canada, on Highway No. 3, in the small town of Sparwood". That's right, you can watch your favorite non-operational heavy hauler 24 hours a day as it sits parked in front of that mall. Since its night time right now, you get a lovely view of the headlamps updated every few minutes. I'm assuming that the day time view is equally exciting but I haven't got to experience it yet, I can probably check in while I watch Canada AM tomorrow.

For a different cam experience, visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium Cams. Between 7am and 7pm Pacific Time you can watch live video of penguins, sea otters, fish, birds and sea turtles. I'll be tuning in on the weekend at feeding time to see how crazy the new blackfooted penguins are!

End of the Line

2008-04-03T21:37:00.000-06:00

Summer?

2008-03-31T21:31:00.003-06:00

Can't wait for icecream, sunshine and heat!

Not the Mac

2008-03-18T21:28:00.003-06:00

Since we returned to Calgary, my travels have been restricted to one place - Fort McMurray. Given that Fort McMurray is what it is, I was pretty excited to find out that my next field trip would not be to the "Big Mac" (as my father says). So, now here I am in Cranbrook doing geotechnical geophysics, enjoying my giant hotel room (it may be bigger than my house) and loving not being in the frozen north. There are no seismic workers wanted to tell me about their gambling problems at the dinner table, I don't have to share a bathroom and dinner tonight was not porkchops and mushroom gravy. Not that the frozen north is all bad but change is certainly good!

Troubles with the Time Change

2008-03-11T22:18:00.002-06:00

I've never had trouble with "springing forward" or "falling back" before, but this year has just been a disaster.

Sunday we completely forget that the time had even changed until we stop by A&As. A mad rush ensues to make it to our hair appointments on time.
I then forget to move my alarm clock ahead - mad rush ensues to make it to work Monday morning.
Alarm clock gets reset - for pm instead of am. Mad rush ensues to make it to work Tuesday morning.

I can't think of anything else we've missed but if we're late for work tomorrow again...

2008-03-09T20:36:00.002-06:00

If you haven't had the pleasure of the MacDonalds as house guests over the past 6 months you are quickly running out of time. We have made a very adult move and purchased a home in Calgary to go along with our new grown up jobs. As of April 30 we will no longer be homless vagabonds and instead will be (respectable) land owners.

Not only will you, our wonderful friends and family, no longer have us in your spare rooms for long periods of time, but we will finally be able to move things out of our storage unit. And stop forwarding our mail. And put our clothes into the closet instead of a laundry basket. So many things to look forward to!

At Work

2008-02-25T14:47:00.008-07:00

A summary of my last month at work. ERT is pretty basic (when it runs well) - lay out cable, pound in long steel rods, collected data, pull steel rods, roll up cable. Repeat forever...

My first day on the job. I look all shiny and new! The metal contraption on the front of my quad is a pounder, used to hammer electrodes into the ground. At this point in my ERT career I can barely lift the pounder off the quad. I spend the first day on the job pounding electrodes and the next two weeks feeling the pain.
Later on I get promoted to running the equipment. One of my duties is to place pin flags at certain electrodes for the surveyor. I learn to dread the pin flags and spend much of my time trying to come up with a method that doesn't require walking 1 km every time. I also learn that I cannot carry a car battery more than 10 m.
A slow day on the line. The rubbermaid tub on the quad contains our resistivity measuring equipment. I basically drive the quad up and down the line plugging into cables. When I am not collecting data I am usually pushing my quad out of a snow bank. Or doing jumping jacks to stay warm.

Just another -40 day. Bundled up in every piece of clothing I brought, walking becomes a challenge. I look at least 30lbs heavier. My once large nomex becomes tight as I try and fit two fleeces, a puffy vest, long underwear and fleece pants underneath. Everything must be carried around inside my clothes including two radios, a mini pizza, 4 sharpies and a headlamp making things even more crowded.

During our week long cold spell, my two neck warmers freeze up under my helmet making it impossible to remove until I thaw it out in the truck at the end of the day. I also have to spend time deicing my eyes so I can see. I stop carrying a mini pizza with me since I cannot get it to my mouth anyways.

Safety first. Dion, Brendan and Chris discuss the hazards associated with ERT as outlined on our oversized safety form. The discovery of the oversized form causes much giggeling and tells us that we have all been in the bush far too long if we find it funny.

After the wolf incident we get sent to a different program involving skidoos; a lot of swearing and cursing; and rock solid ground at a mine site. The weather warms up, our new camp only serves cookies for lunch and my room is smaller than the pickup truck. Still, despite all that it is, ERT is fun in the same way that treeplant was fun...

We also have to shovel out snowbanks and pour salt water over our electrodes. Luckily we have no more animal incidents and other than spending a day pushing out skidoos through the forest things go well. We finish and I get sent home earlier than expected! I rejoyce, Jon rejoyces, those left in Fort Mc carry on...

Tall Tales

2008-02-13T06:04:00.002-07:00

ERT requires 4 cables to run. Late yesterday afternoon, putting an end to our survey, a wolf ate our 4th cable. Seriously, he came by and ate it. How do you prepare for that? There were no witnessess to the attack, but the wolf howls, the large wolf prints and the wolf pee on the cable suggest that this was no rabbit attack.

Back to the Mac

2008-02-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

In a few short hours I will be flying back to Fort McMurray for another 3 weeks of ERT fun. Hopefully the weather is warm and the rabbits leave us alone! I have learned from my last trip that one needs serious moisturizer (hand, body and hair) and gummy candies to survive comfortably. I will have my own laptop with me, so communication should be easier. Trying to jam the giant yellow pelican case into the overhead plane bins will not be easy. I also have brought my camera and ipod - spare time in the field will now be filled with photo shoots and tunes when the weather allows.

I have given Jon a list of tasks to accomplish while I am gone and he will again have to deal with moving us around. Luckily, he is an amazing husband and I know he'll do it all!

In other news, I have won a free video rental from the movie store in Hinton. Wow...

Baby its cold out here!

2008-01-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

I realize that my last post was a little scattered - satallite internet is unreliable and I just wanted to get something up! Plus, I may have been a little crazy after a few days of work.

For those of you who don't see me on a regular basis, I finally started a "real" job at the begining of January as a future geophysicist. For the first two weeks I mostly did safety training and perfected my office wardrobe. Then for the past 9 days or so I've been in Fort MacMurray collecting data for an exploration project. Its a far cry from office work, but I'm enjoying it (mostly).

My work involves all things that make field work good and bad - quads (good), cold weather (bad), equipment troubles (normal) and lots of work hours (good and bad). Lately things have been more on the cold side with a string of -40 days. Quads won't start, equipment has been breaking and my quad helmet frosts up into a giant snowball. I refuse to take it off when its this cold, so I just wear it everywhere in the field. Several pictures have been taken of me by our co-op student so when I return to the south you'll all get to see what my crew has to stare at all day. Production has been low (I shot the same 2000m for the past 3 days) but my co-workers are a blast and its not all bad.

I'm living in a camp slightly north of town - its wonderful to have someone cooking my breakfast, making freshly baked goodies for lunch and serving me a hot dinner when I return from 12 hours in the cold. My room is actually quite nice with its closet, desk and single bed. Its a lot like res, if res had been filled with male rig workers. After the cookies, the highlight is the home made soups and fancy herbal teas!

The downside of remote work is that I do miss my "home" (husband and dog) and wish the weather would just warm up (-20 please). But, I'll be home in less than a week for a break (yay) and will be ready to deal with it all over again!

2008-01-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today I wanted to be fat. Not just chubby bunny fat but arctic polar bear fat. Its got to be warmer than winter nomex and would have been greatly appreciated today. It was cold, not just -20 cold but in the mid -30s with a wind chill.

My job lately has been to stand near the measuring equipment and keep it going. A typical hour is: drive to new location, do jumping jacks to restore feeling to fingers, try to connect box to cable, do more jumping jackes, get box connected and press start, run up and down line planting blue distance flags, do a few more jumping jacks, un-hook system. Repeat for 10 hours a day. Not that it takes much running or jumping to warm up once you put on full winter nomex, winter boots and a quad helmet. But man, its exhausting!

The Snowman

2008-01-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

Using the lake as a source, I rolled 3 very misshapen snow balls. Jon did the heavy lifting, but my back still ached. Clearly I'm out of practice...
My wonky rolling required a lot of reshaping with snow. I also had to fight off three dogs from peeing on Mr. Snowman.
Brinkley got over his fear of snow people enough to "help" me with the decorations (he is a service breed).
He then decided that the pinecone buttons weren't really needed on the snow man and he ate the ones he could reach.

First Activity of 2008!

2008-01-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

After a relativly un-eventful return to Calgary we decided that we had to do something before I started work and the looong vacation came to end. The snow is not great but there is enough in K-country to make it feel like winter and allow for snowshoeing. We repeated the loop we'd done a couple years ago but it was still quite beautiful and the exercise did us good.

The terraine was rough. Ok, its Andrew just messing around...

The gang enjoying the outdoors.

"I've got too many balls and not enough tree"

2008-01-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

Pictures!

2007-12-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

I figured I should get these sorted before the crazyness of being back in Calgary catches up to me. My favorite ~180 photos of Argentina and Chile are now up on facebook (silly place, but easy):

Argentina Part 1 - Iguazu, Salta, Mendoza and Bariloche
Chile - Puerto Montt, Torres del Paine
Argentina Part 2 - El Calafate, El Chalten, Puerto Madryn and Buenos Aires

Eating Our Way Through Argentina

2007-12-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts of our trip through Argentina was food. It’s evident by the snug fit of our pants that we enjoyed the coffee, pastries, steak, wine and chocolates a little too much. For those of you who just went back to re-read the steak part of that - yes, we do eat steak now. Along with lamb, chicken and in some cases seafood (although I don’t think I’ll keep that up).

For the first time ever in our travels, food became something of an attraction. Part of how much we enjoyed a town was due to how good the food was. Barlioche and Buenos Aires moved to the top of our lists as places to visit for food while Puerto Montt and Mendoza were less favorable.

Our favorite meal was our first steak dinner in Iguazu – great steaks and our first taste of salsa criolla, a spicy tomato onion sauce for steaks. We got a taste of the good steak and from then on we found anything but the top cut of meat to be “too chewy”. The worst meal was Jon’s foray into the world of Mr. Dog panchos (hot dogs) where he ordered the “pancho Mr. Dog” and was served a bun with lettuce, cheese and two “dogs” in it. Hard to choke down!

In between we dined on spicy chorizo sausages on crusty buns, liberally dosed in chimichurri (herbs and olive oil mix), fries in paper cones with mayo and ketchup and ice cream in more flavors than imaginable. Almost every morning started with a café con leche or submarino, and most afternoons included one as well.

I actually miss the eating, although my waist line is in better shape now that I'm not munching away. The food is one of the reasons you should be going to Argentina (if you haven’t been yet). The scenery is spectacular, but some of my best memories are of us eating!

Jonny enjoying cafe con leche in Puerto Madryn while watching whales in the ocean.
Rice with seafood - I didn't eat the guy on top but my dining companions did!
Typical bus breakfast.
A much better breakfast in El Calafate. Submarino, media lunas and cafe corado. The best part about this subarmino was that the chocolate bar came in a submarine shape.
My lamb dinner after finishing Torres del Paine. Simple presentation, but a huge amount of amazing lamb. The man who runs this little restaurant has a good thing going.

Is this available in black?

2007-12-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

I don't dislike shopping, in fact I enjoy it, but shopping for clothes is another matter. Especially dress clothes, I avoid it like the plague. But today I needed to buy a blazer/jacket/whatever you call it. So after driving 6 hours from Hinton to Calgary with only a gas stop in Edson, I hit the mall. I immediately regretted it, 4 pm on a Sunday before Christmas and the mall was packed. I whacked people out of the way with my purse as I scanned the stores for the perfect jacket (and shoes for that matter). Nearling the end of my shopping stamina (and shopping hours) I finally found what I was looking for - thank goodness for shopping associates! The wonderful woman quickly picked out the perfect outfit and had me on my way with no awkward size fussing or huge padded shoulders.

Aww, nuts!

2007-12-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

Since I returned to Canada I've been living with my parents while I job hunt. The job hunt has consisted, so far, of very little job hunting and lots of Christmas shopping and baking. Excellent pastimes but unlikely to help me find employment. When I find myself very unmotivated to look for work, I check my bank account balance. The low numbers there have a way of inspiring me...

I am also in the process of printing off my travel photos (starting with the WCT) and they are bringing back lots of happy memories. It may be a while before I get the completed set of Argentina photos out there though, 1300 is a daunting number to sort through.

In the spirit of Argentina, I am indulging in a submarino while I bake today. Not good for the diet but it does wonders for the soul.

We're where?

2007-12-06T15:28:00.000-07:00

Just 33 hours after being picked up by our crazy taxi driver in Buenos Aires we were shivering in the cold of another Alberta winter. How quickly you can move from travel mode to real world mode. Cafe con leche and confusing spanish speakers seem so long ago already.

Trip summary? We had an amazing time in South America. Not necessarily better, but just different then our last trip. Looking back, all I have to say is go to Argentina now before the peso makes a come back and steak stops being less than $6US! Experience it all for yourself, just bring your own sleeping bag and spend as little time as possible in El Chalten.

Last Days...

2007-11-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

We left Puerto Madryn on the 1st Class bus - fully reclining seats, 4 different movies and bingo games made the ride pass quickly. Buenos Aires is hotter than we remember, its 30º today and sort of humid. My feet are sore from walking everywhere. A 9 hour walk to and from Palmero and almost 7 hours today looking for the perfect wine holder. The city is busy after the small towns we´ve been in for the past month. But its exciting, with tango dancers, street venders and multiple icecream stores to chose from.

We´ve pretty much just shopped and ate since we arrived here. Our hostel is busy and full of young people, so we tend to avoide it. But its conveniently located within walking distance of most everything and the room is confortable and clean. It currently looks like we were robbed, with clothes and bags and papers strewn everywhere in preparation for packing tomorrow.

We´re just taking it easy until our flight tomorrow. We saw most of the tourist sights last time except for the Japonese Gardens, which we visited yesterday as a break from the shopping (and walking). For a $0.33US we bought a baggie of food and fed the koi in the ponds. One more trip to the grocery store for some last minute dulce de leche is all that we have to do. And perhaps a trip to the icecream parlor for some last minute dulce de leche icecream too...

The Last of Patagonia

2007-11-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

Puerto Madryn was our last stop in Patagonia and our last new city before returning to Buenos Aires (and then home). After the winds and mountains of inland Patagonia we were looking forward to the ocean and warm breezes. We got the ocean, but until this morning those warm breezes were blowing pretty cold!

On the bus to Madryn we met up with our Swiss friends and made plans for visiting the two sights near town – Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdes and Punta Tombo. Upon arrival, tour bookings was taken care of by the eager staff at the hostel and we were off!

Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdes

This peninsula is located about an hour north of town and is home to a variety of marine life from birds to seals to whales. We´d booked a bus tour which included an English speaking guide and a chance to spot some marine life close up. Like all tours we´ve taken, this one involved a lot of driving, a few angry Spanish people and an extra long lunch stop at a very expensive restaurant (which we avoided by eating sandwiches on the bus). But we did get the chance to get close enough to elephant seals to touch the ugly monsters (not that we did, the sign warned ¨puppies may be squished¨!). We spent over an hour sitting on the beach within spitting range of a hundred large elephant seals, watching them lumber around and listening to the farting sounds they make when they sneeze. The seals are there in large numbers right now, just sitting on the beach, waiting for their fur to molt off. Not a bad way to pass 5 weeks or so...

After the seals we went to see the real stars of the peninsula, the southern whales. We´re pretty near the end of the whale season, and its possible that we spotted the very last of the whales in the bay. They come to the area to mate and to raise their young before heading back south for the summer. The majority of the whales had already headed south, but we did get close up views of a mother and her calf - close enough that I could have touched them from the boat.

The elephant seal pups from last year (looking cute).

Momma whale poking her head up to see us.

Punta Tombo

Punta Tombo is the largest breeding colony of Magellanic penguins in the world. Its a couple hours south of Madryn, but we couldn´t stomach another tour (which always include a stop we don´t want to see). Instead, a car was rented, a picnic packed and Jon got behind the wheel to drive. Because we didn´t leave at the same time as the tour buses, we arrived late enough in the day that the hoards of tourists were leaving as we arrived and we had a couple hours of almost just us and the 170 000 penguins. You can get amazingly close to the penguins and its really a pleasure to watch them waddle around and even swim in the ocean. Penguin chicks were just starting to hatch, and furry babies could be seen sitting on their parents feet.

Penguins as far as the eye can see. Each hole is a nest and in each nest are two penguins...

Stretching after a good grooming. Penguins spend a lot of time cleaning their feathers...This guy was enjoying the peace and quiet after the tours left. He may also have been working on his tan...

The Rest
Puerto Madryn is a sleepy little town but after touring for two days we were happy to sleep in, try and locate our laundry from the laundry service and enjoy amazing icecream. We´ve walked the beach, dabbled our toes in the Atlantic ocean for the second time this year and gotten our fill of browsing stores filled with whale decorated t-shirts. With only another 1/2 day in town we´ve got just enough time for our laundry to be found (hopefully) and another few icecream flavours sampled before we continue on our way.

Enough with the glaciers already!

2007-11-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

After Torres del Paine, we caught a bus back into Argentina for a little more mountain viewing. Parque National Los Glaciares is just on the other side of the border and offers more spectacular hiking and the granddaddy of all glaciers, Perito Moreno. Apart from the scenery, the towns we visited had nothing going for them but we endured high prices and mediocre food for the chance to view some of the nicest mountains we´ve ever seen. Oh, a just a few more glaciers in case we hadn´t gotten our fill of ice...

Our first stop was the big glacier- Perito Mereno. We skipped the tour (since we´re way over budget by this point) and simply took a bus out to the glacier for a few hours. We´re glad we didn´t spend longer, as the glacier filled up with tour buses shortly after we arrived. We can´t handle the crowds of people pushing around and retired to eat avacado sandwiches from a view point after only an hour. Still, even with all the people, the glacier was spectacular and we´re glad we made the trip for it. As you can see, it was a little cloudy and chilly at the glacier front, but back in town the sun was shining and we warmed up with a hike to see the local flamingos.

After only one day in Calafate, we were ready for a change and we headed north to El Chalten. We´d been warned that El Chalten was not the finest of towns, but that didn´t prepare us for the partially finished pile of buildings that our bus driver claimed was town. It was windy, dirty and ugly! The main drag (which was really all that there was in the town) was un-paved and contained, well, nothing. Maybe I´m being a little judgmental, but our first impressions of the town weren´t good. The bright light was our B&B and the apple pie at the nearby panaderia.

Luckily, El Chalten has more going for it than its buildings (or lack of). Treking to the mighty Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre can be started right in town which is the only reason why you´d endure the endless winds and dirt of El Chalten. Unusually, the day we decided to start our trek was clear and windless and within a few hours we could see Mnt. Fitz Roy ahead of us. Its the highest peak in the area and portions of it can be seen from town when the wind isn´t howling.

We´d given ourselves 3 days to hike and camp in the area, so we weren´t too disapointed when the peak clouded over as soon as we were within range of the view point. Later, when we did attempt to climb to the view point, the incredibly strong winds kept the viewing to a minimum. Thanks to the borrowed treking guide, we knew there were other sites to occupy our time and spent the rest of our afternoon looking at yet another glacier.

The next morning was perfectly clear (which could explain why we were so cold at night), and a sidetrip along the valley before breakfast gave us crystal clear views of Fitz Roy without the wind. We could have spent all day watching ice fall from the glacier but there were other mountains to view.

(Fitz Roy and other peaks with glacier and lake)

Setting out from camp we met our Swiss friends day-hiking our three day trek (crazy) and from them we heard that the second big peak in the area, Cerro Torre, was visible. People in town say that you can only see it 5 days of the year so we´d expected to find it clouded over when we arrived to camp at its base. I think the townies are wrong about the visibility frequency, or we´ve used up all the clear days, since the peak was visible for 3 days while we were there. I found it less spectacular than Fitz Roy, but easier to enjoy as its only a 10 minute walk from camp. Usually we don´t have time for sitting around when we hike, but this time we found ourselves with a whole afternoon of free time. Again, luck was with us and it was hot, really hot, in the valley. Fleece jackets were shed and 4 glorious hours were spent basking in the sun, and yes, waiting for glacial ice to fall.

A not so early walk to the lake rewarded us with reflections of the peak and an absence of other trekers (rare). We look our time getting back to town, but all was well in Chalten when we arrived, with the wind still faint and the sun shining. The circuit that we completed was short (30km?) but probably one of the nicest hikes we´ve ever done. If you find yourself in El Chalten and the weather is nice, we highly recomend!

While waiting for my photos...

2007-11-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

... check out our friends Katia and Didier, a Swiss couple traveling around the world. They´re almost at the end of their trip and have some amazing photos of South America, India, Nepal, etc. Their blog is in French (problem for us who don´t read French I guess) but for those of you who are multilingual, they´re pretty funny. We´re regreting not bringing our big camera as our shots aren´t half as nice as theirs, but they have captured a few moments with us that we are looking forward to seeing.

Internet Woes

2007-11-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

I´d meant to upload more pictures with my Torres del Paine post but we had a dinner date with some friends and I had to end my session early. I think it was worth it as we ate at an amazing restaurant, but its taken me until now to find an internet connection that will allow me to upload this one photo! Thats what $4US in a tourist town in the middle of nowhere buys you. The satallite connection here keeps going down and when its up it doesn´t like anything google related. But the photo is proof that Jon and I are alive and well even if we can´t use the internet as we wished (the tough life of a traveller). Perhaps in a week or so when we get back to the other side of the country I´ll be able to up date with photos again. Until then...

Us, in front of the Torres, enjoying a sunny, windless day in Patagonia.

The ¨W¨

2007-11-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

The ¨W¨ is probably the only reason 90% of travelers are in Puerto Natales (Chile). Its a well reviewed 5 day trek in Torres del Paine National Park that takes in some stunning scenery. Named for the W shape it traces out along the base of several peaks its only about 80 km long and not ranked as the most difficult of treks. Loaded up with rental gear and the Chilian version of treking food, we set out to see for ourselves.

The trek is wonderful, if you can stand the large groups of people (oh, a far cry from Canada) and the wind. But the views were fantastic, we only had seriously bad weather for one morning (snow) and we got to see almost everything we set out to view.

We saw the Grey Glacier (ok weather), missed the Valley Frances (snow and clouds) and got two beautiful days at the Torres. Other than freezing everynight in our rental sleeping bags (perhaps we should have brought our own) things went fine. In fact, 4 out of 5 sunny days is pretty good! I prepared 3 different pasta meals (and one potato) and we dinned well on PB and honey on crackers for lunch.

We finished the trek exhausted, in need of a shower and craving something other than pasta. We´ve got tonight in Puerto Natales before heading back to Argentina to see more glaciers and doing a little more treking. Below are just a few of the many pictures we snapped on our 5 days.

Into Chile

2007-11-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

We were both a little nervous about crossing into Chile from Argentina - we´ve never had to cross a border by bus before and we were loaded down with fine chocolate and wine. In order as we were seated on the bus we were presented first to Argentinian border guards to get our exit stamp and then to Chilian border guards to get an entry stamp. Other than a long look at Jon´s passport photo (those sideburns throw them off) we were into a new country hassel free!

Crossing into Chile from Bariloche hadn´t been in the original itinerary. But the lack of buses heading down to Patagonia on the Argentinian side prompted us to change plans and book berths on the ferry from Puerto Montt, Chile, to Puerto Natales, Chile (home to the famous Torres del Paine National Park). The ferry was a little out of the budget (at a whopping $370 US each) but seemed to be the least painfull way to make it south.

Puerto Montt, our first stop in Chile, was disapointing. We found it dirty and full of drunks when we arrived by bus but our guest house was nice and our fellow travelers welcoming. The next morning, things looked a little better in town, especially since we were leaving and the drunks were still sleeping it off. We lugged our bags to the ferry check in (along with 200 other tourists) and then left to purchase a few more motion sickness pills (Jenn) and wine (Jon). We returned later in the afternoon for a final check-in before setting sail (behind schedule already).

The ferry is a combination cargo ship/tourist trap which allows approximatly 200 people and an assortment of semi-trailers to be carried through the Chilian fjords south into Patagonia. We were settled into a massive 22 person dorm, sub-divided into sets of 2 bunk beds. Luckily for us, our bunk mates were wonderful and didn´t even snore!

We spent the next four days crawling at a snails pace through some outstanding scenery. There were only 12 hours of very rough seas, in which I curled in first my bunk and then the bathroom while the boat swayed madly. Jon is unaffected by such things and he read and dined and slept through the night.

But the boatride was worth the seasickness. We got about 50% sunny weather (which I think is pretty good) and we were the first trip of the season to visit the large, advancing glacier enroute. Very spectacular!

We´re now in Puerto Natales, Chile (the ferry arrived last night) and madly doing prep to get on the trail tomorrow. My rough night on the boat has cost me, I have now caught a cold and am snifflying and sneezing my way around town while wiping my nose raw with cheap kleenx. Its chilly, as expected but it hasn´t snowed (yet).

The mighty ferry.

Mountain views.

Snow.

Glacial rocks.

Glacier Pio XI

The front.

Three Weeks and Mountains

2007-11-03T12:26:00.000-06:00

We´ve been touring around Argentina for a little under 3 weeks now, although it feels like its been a lot longer than that! In the past 19 days we´ve been up through the northern half of the country, and covered waterfalls to high altitude desert. We´ve got just under a month left in our trip and a fair bit of the country left to see. We´re headed south towards the Chilian Patagonia for some mountains and treking before returning to Argentina for glaciers and penguins. Given the large distances we have to travel, it will probably take our remaining month to make it back to Buenos Aires. Luckily for us travel hasn´t been that hard and our small amount of Spanish is serving us well.

I try and add a new phrase or word to my vocabulary everyday, but its never enough to fully understand. We spent a whole day very curious about signs reading ¨picnic sin fogones¨ at all the stops on our bike trip, until we looked up fogones in the dictionary at the hostel. It means firepit.

I´ve finally found some reasonably fast internet here in Bariloche and uploaded some photos of the past few days. Our boat trip yesterday was a disaster - long, boring and ugly! But we had an excellent lasagna last night and some gourmet chocolates to help us recover.

So, we´re well, well fed and enjoying our adventures!

Photos are 1- View of the the lake from our hostel, 2- Mountains on the Circuito Chico and 3- Lake view from Cerrito Llao Llao.

More mountains from our bike trip.

Another view from Cerrito Llao Llao.

View from the gondola ride.
Jon and I at the top of Cerro Otto.

Mountain view from the boat trip.

Brrr...

2007-11-01T14:40:00.000-06:00

Bariloche (Argentina) is a shock to the system. A mere 20 hours on the bus and we were no longer enjoying heat and palm trees but instead cold winds, snow and mountains! Despite the chilly temperatures, Bariloche is fast becoming on of our favorite places so far. Its got a certain vibe, which is really nice after the northern Argentinian cities. We´ve got 4 days here, the longest we´ve spent anywhere so far, and are filling them with mountain type adventures.

Wednesday (our first day) we rented bikes and biked the Circuito Chico, a lovely mountain loop with excellent scenery and several large hills. Although it was chilly enough to need toques under our bike helmets we had an excellent time since we were practically the only people on the road. Biking, instead of taking a tour, gave us the time to snap pictures of the mountains and enjoy a late afternoon break with a beautiful view (and some great olives). Our calves are not happy today.

Today we took it easy and rode the gondola to the summit of a near by mountain, Cerro Otto, for views of Bariloche and the lake. It was windy, so the the ride made me quite queasy (7 minutes is a long time!) but the views from the slightly rundown chalet on top were worth it. We had a licuado (like a milkshake) in the revolving restaurante at the top, but that only enhanced my seasick feeling. On the way down we watched a family trudging up the 4 km hike and felt that our $20 was well spent to avoide that.

The rest of our time has been filled with sampling chocolates to determine who is the best chocolatier in town (a demanding activity) and browsing in the shops. Bariloche is like being in Banff or Jasper - plenty of tacky souviner shops to check out for the best deals on woolen toques and shirts with Bariloche on them. There are a few gems out there, and we´ve got some time penciled in to check it out.

Tomorrow we doing a boat tour (thankgoodness I packed gravol) and then spending Saturday preping to head into Chile. My internet connection won´t allow for pictures, so those will have to wait until next time.

Bikes and Wines

2007-10-29T08:40:00.000-06:00

Mendoza is an adventure paradise - tour companies offering everything from paragliding to rock climbing. Its also at the heart of Argentina´s wine region with both small and large bodegas producing a staggering array of vino. Jonny and I aren´t really the paragliding type, and white water rafting produces welts on one of us so instead we did what Jon enjoys - spent a day sampling some of the finest wine at bargain prices. We chose not to do a stuffy bus tour of the wineries and instead rented bikes from a company that specializes in biking wine tours and who´s employees though Jon had an uncanny reseblance to Wolverine (check out his sideburns).

We were picked up from our hostel (late again) and shuttled out to the Maipu vine region, just south of the city. There we were given a map, two bottles of water, a voucher for lunch and our choice of 1/2 a dozen bright yellow bicycles. We requested helmets and after some rummaging we were given a bright yellow shell for Jon and a fushia pink for me.

Our first stop (a mere 600m down the road) was the large Rural winery, which produces 6000 bottles an hour. We got a very excellent tour in Spanish, which left us with no understanding of how the winery worked but did include two free tastings in the very tastefully decorated winery lobby. Starting to get into the swing of things, we hoped back on our bikes and headed to tast liquors and chocolates. Sadly, the chocolate wasn´t very good, but our chocolate liquor shots made up for it. Sometime during the tasting Jon´s bike got switched for another company bike, complete with flat tire. We got a nice tour of the liquor making process while we waited for our replacement tire to arrive.

After lunch we hit a much smaller winery, Vino El Cerno, where we got a tour in English, a lesson on how to taste wine and a chance to stand in an old wine vault. Then it was off to another small winery, where we got three tastings (which I actually enjoyed). More than enough wine for me!

I´m no more of a wine expert than when we started out, but the trip was enjoyable and a great break from the hussel and bustel of the city.

Jonny in the celler with some aging wine.
Showing off our very nice helmets.
Vines in front of the Andes - a pretty nice spot for biking!

Salta and Area

2007-10-25T07:40:00.000-06:00

Salta is located in the Northwest corner of Argentina, near the borders of Bolivia and Chile. Only one bus company travels there from Iguazu, so we were forced to travel FlechaBus, in semi-cama, while watching the music videos for DanceMix ´96 and eating ham sandwiches (for breakfast, lunch and dinner). It wasn´t as nice as our last bus trip and we were very glad to see the city of Salta after 26 hours!

The city itself is a mix of clothing stores, old colonial buildings and modern high rises. There are also a couple of spectacular churches and loads of great food. Our main purpose for visiting Salta had been to cross over into Bolivia for a quick tour of the salt flats before continuing south through Argentina. A look at our calender told us that there wasn´t going to be time for that if we wanted to see the rest of Argentina, so instead we booked ourselves a one day tour of the valleys that surround Salta itself as well as onward tickets to Mendoza.

Our tour started off on a sour note with our guide being nearly an hour late to collect us from the hotel, but improved once we found out that there would only be 4 people on the tour and that we would be able to see the sites that we wanted for as long as we wanted. The trip was a loop through northern Argentina near the Chilian border, visiting canyons, salt flats and crossing over several high passes. We lucked out and got clear, sunny weather which allowed us to see the spectacular colors of the various canyons we drove through, as well as enjoy the glare off the giant Salinas Grandes (salt lake).

We arrived back in our hotel exhausted after 12 hours of off road driving and site seeing, but pleased with what we had seen. The scenery was amazing, although I don´t think the photos do it justice. Its hard to capture a giant salt lake in a single photo! The two shots are of the valley we drove through before heading up to the puna (high altitude desert). The rest of the photos follow in the order of the tour.
The road up out of the valley. We climbed over 2000 m in less than 30 km, up to 4200 m.

Salinas Grandes, a large salt lake. The locals are mining for salt by digging holes through the crust, which then fill with the salty water. Once the water evaporates, the almost pure salt is collected for export.
Salt tables on the Salinas Grandes.

Vicunas on the puna. Apparently they are the producers of the most expensive wool in the world. They look like a smaller llama, which we also saw.

Cactus on the puna. They were everywhere!

Valley through which the ¨Train to the Clouds¨used to run. By this point we´d been in the same car for 11 hours and I was too exhausted to take many pictures. We also stopped at some pre-Inca ruins.

Worth 1000 Words...

2007-10-21T15:30:00.000-06:00

Just as I finished the last post, the rain cleared and we were able to continue our tour of Iguazu falls. Jon flagged the bus down just as it was leaving the station, and we made it to the park before anyone else caught on that it wasn´t raining. If you´re ever in this part of Argentina, the falls are definatly something to check out. And if you´ve only got a short while at the part, the lower circuit is FAR better than any of the other scenic walks to the falls. We were so glad we made it back today, as it was the walk we chose not to do yesterday and it rewarded us with the best views of the falls.

View of some of the falls from the lower circuit walk. I can´t honestly remember the name of any of the falls, but they were mostly spectacular. Now and again they would sneak in a small, boring water fall with some fancy name and Jon and I would walk over to see it, fooled. But mostly we just saw huge curtains of water cascading through lush greenery.

Closer view of the falls. We hike this trail twice we like it so much. Our one disapointment was that the boat that ran to the island in the middle of the falls wasn´t running. Apparently the morning storm had damaged the trails, so we were unable to get as close to the falls as we could have. I guess we´ll just have to come back some day!

Coatis - small racoon like animals that were everywhere! Signs warning you not to feed them were up in english, spanish and picture form, but the coatises seemed to be doing just fine. I took some video of a family of them walking across one of the waterfall bridges, which may make it to the web at some point.(Obviously) Us in front of the star waterfall on site (which was too big to fully capture in one shot). Also available on video at a later date.

About a zillion other photos of the falls were taken, and will be sorted and posted apres trip for those of you who crave more waterfall shots.

Rain in Iguazu :(

2007-10-21T08:49:00.000-06:00

We took the overnight bus from Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls on Friday. We loved our fancy seats which folded into beds, the fact that they served a hot dinner and drinks plus a breakfast the next morning. The movies left something to be desired, although it turns out that Mr. Beans Vacation is the perfect movie to watch without sound. The 18 hour trip passed blissfully quick as we slept our way north to the jungle. And Puerto Iguazu is jungle - it was hot and humid when we arrived in the town with its red dirt roads and green palm trees.

After settling into our new accomadations (where we actually got a double bed!) we purchased some tickets and got on the bus to the falls. It was hot and crowded at this major attraction but we sweated our way though half of the sites before calling it a day and planning our return the next day. This morning, we woke early to beat the crowds and hurried to the bus station. We arrived at the terminal just as the clouds broke open and heavy rain started. At first we considered going, thinking that the rain would quickly pass bringing back the sunshine we'd had the day before. But I wanted a long sleeved shirt, so we went back to grab it before catching the next bus. As we walked back to our hostel, the rain turned into tropical storm and the power went out. We waited hopefully at the bus station for things to turn better, but 4 hours later we are still in town, and only now is the rain slowing down. I think we're going to try going again now - the weather forcast is for rain again tomorrow and we've already got bus tickets for our next destination leaving Monday morning.

I'll post some pictures of the falls when I locate our USB cable in the pile of stuff that exploded from our packs as we searched for rain jackets this morning.

In Buenos Aires

2007-10-18T12:42:00.000-06:00

We arrived safely in B.A. yesterday afternoon after a long and cramped flight from Calgary to Toronto to Santiago to B.A. We spent what remained of the day wandering in San Telmo (where our hostel is) and sleeping. Today we were a bit more adventurous and headed to book bus tickets and see the city center. We love the old buildings and the busy streets. Plaza de Mayo was nice and we strolled the shopping distract and sat in the sun in a park. Our first impression of B.A. is that its much more developed than other countries we´ve travelled to. Its sort of luxurious to be able to wander in a city like this. It has a subway (which is just as nice as the Ctrain), and amazing icecream! Mmm... and the pastries! Jon is in heaven and may not want to go anywhere else. Nice as it is though, we are both looking forward to seeing how different the rest of the country is.

We are going to spend the rest of the day sitting on the patio in the sun and testing out a bottle of Malbec we bought ($3). We´ll likely have a siesta as well, this is vacation after all!

Tomorrow we are taking an overnight bus to Puerto Iguazu to see the falls. We splurged and bought "cama" class seats (which fold into beds). They are on the second story of the bus and looked quite comfy from the pictures I saw. From what I understood, food will be served and movies shown. I think it will be nicer than our plane ride here!

Take Off

2007-10-15T18:48:00.000-06:00

I hate packing and preparing for trips like this. There is always the nagging feeling that I've forgotten to do something. I worry that I've decided not to pack something that I'm going to regret not having, or packed something that I'll never use.

We spent all day today rushing between doctors appointments and trying to complete all the little tasks. This evening we packed, and then repacked trying to get our gear to fit comfortably in 50L packs. It never seems like a lot of stuff until you try and get it into you pack. But its done. Or I think its all done. Anyways, the bags are full and I'm not bringing anymore!! Argentina here we come, ready or not!

The Best of the Rest

2007-09-29T19:26:00.000-06:00

We left our cozy B&B Tuesday morning and headed off to the highlands in search of excellent scenery and moose. Our first stop was the Glenora Distillery, the only single malt whiskey distillery in Canada. We got a quick tour of how the place worked and a shot of the good stuff to perk us up before we were back on the Cabot Trail. Whiskey making is a very involved process, which might explain the very high prices of the stuff in the store ($15 for one of those itty bitty bottles!). Along the Cabot Trail (which goes through Cape Breton National Park) we took a short detour to the northern-most settlement in Nova Scotia (Meat Cove) which was lacking in both meat and the whales that are supposed to be seen just offshore. The cove was beautiful, but a very brisk sea wind and gathering clouds sent us out of there before too long. Disappointed (in the lack of whales) we went back to our tourist loop and spent the day slowly making our way through the National Park until the rain started and we set up our giant silver home. Although Lonely Planet said we’d have a hard time not seeing a moose, we saw nothing more animal like than the Pitcher plant (which eats insects) on our loop. Liars.

Wednesday was HOT, we woke up to 18oC and within a few hours we were enjoying the sunshine and 30oC weather. Our one stop for the day, an out of the way fish hatchery (Jon’s choice) was surprisingly interesting and we got to watch some very large fish close up.

We headed back to New Brunswick on Thursday to visit the southern portion. The very empty Fort Beausejour National Historic site was an excellent first stop. The fort has restored underground rooms which you can go through (if you’re short enough) and with no one else there we were able to run all over the place. If you’re ever in the area and have half an hour to waste, I highly recommend.

I’d never heard of the Hopewell Rocks until I saw them on the front of our tourist guide for NB, but we figured if they made the cover they should be at least a little interesting. So after getting our fill of history at the fort, we drove out along the Bay of Fundy to see them for ourselves. Fundy is known for its huge tides and along with some other wonderful natural processes has created pillars of rock out on the sea floor which are now known as the Hopewell Rocks. At low tide you can wander out among them and in the off-season, photograph them without a hundred strangers in your shots. We suffered the embarrassment of having to carry our large dog up and down the beach access stairs, much to the enjoyment of all the older folks at the site. The Maritimes are filled with the grey haired set, so we tend to stick out where ever we go (we’re 40 years younger and have a massive hairy dog and no motor home). I think the rocks lived up the hype so it was probably worth the strain on Jon to carry the mutt around.

A short dusk time drive around Fundy National Park finally rewarded us with our moose sightings, along with deer, rabbits and a grouse (all in about 20 minutes). I’ve seen moose before, but 3 of them at one time was pretty neat. Torrential downpour started Thursday night and carried on all through Friday so instead of spending more time in Fundy NP we loaded a very wet tent into the car and hightailed it to the Quebec border. Today we drove through Quebec, stopping only for Tim Hortons and gas – neither one of us speaks enough French to do much more than that. We got lost in Montreal (of course) but finally made it across the border into Ontario where we can communicate with the locals! Again, we’re living large at the KOA South Ottawa (which is no where near Ottawa) and heading to the cottage tomorrow before working our way slowly back to Alberta. We very much enjoyed our trip to the coast – although next time we’re taking a camper van!

Nova Scotia South Shore

2007-09-24T09:24:00.000-06:00

It’s a stormy night in Cape Breton so we decided to splurge and have holed up in the Creignish Craft Works B & B on the island. It’s an eclectic place – once a school house it has been refurbished into a B & B overlooking the ocean. There are really no words to describe a house decorated with Scottish tartan and a giant tuna (among the hundreds of things that crowd the hallways and rooms here). But our room is warm, only slightly over budget and out of the howling winds and rain. Our host, Sandra, is quirky and the raccoons out front are amusing.

We arrived in Cape Breton this evening after touring the eastern and southern shores of Nova Scotia for the weekend. We started off Saturday by heading north from Halifax to the Fort Edward National Historic Site. We had to cut our visit short when Jon set off the alarm at the fort building trying to open the door to the blockhouse. We waited a few minutes for someone to show up (the site doesn’t have anyone at it) before scrambling back to our car and heading out of town. We stopped for some apples and cider in the apple capital of Nova Scotia before turning our sites to the slightly out of way Digby Neck, a spit of land that juts out alongside the Bay of Fundy. We were hoping to spot some whales from shore as it is well known for being home to several species this time of year but all we saw was a light house. Bored of another unscenic scenic coastal drive we cut across the middle of the province to the southern shore, famed for Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove, to spend the night.

Sunday was our day for the big sites. We stopped first at the Kejimkujik National Park Seaside Adjunct where we were the only people in the park. We wandered through the fog to the shore where we saw Harbor and Grey seals lounging on the rocks (I only know that because they have interpretive plaques). Several large rocks provided an excellent spot to sit and watch them up close. Then it was off to Lunenburg (finally, a scenic scenic drive!) to see the Bluenose II and purchase a bobble-headed lobster for our dashboard. Patches was terrified of the Bluenose so we left shortly after watching it dock. We set up camp near Peggy’s Cove before heading to see the famed lighthouse in the late afternoon. Nice, but very windy so we didn’t stay long.

This morning we got lost in Halifax trying to get to the eastern shores and hit every patch of construction. We did stop at two beautiful beaches, but the wind kept us from sitting around too long. By the late afternoon we’d made it to the northern shore and we crossed the causeway (an adventure with the spray) into Cape Breton.

Tomorrow its off to the whiskey distillery and a location called Meat Cove (we’ll find out if they let vegetarians in) to try again for some whales. I have high hopes for some scenic vistas, excellent weather and lots of CBC Radio 1.

Ah, the East...

2007-09-21T14:49:00.000-06:00

Our excitement on reaching NB Monday afternoon was dampened by the long, boring forested drive across the top of NB to the coast - possibly less scenic than the drive to Sudbury. Our spirits were lifted upon arrival in Campbellton, where we set up camp in Sugarloaf Provincial Park and immediately headed up the "mountain" for the beautiful views the guidebook promised. After nearly a week in the car, our bodies were unaccustomed to any activity and we dragged ourselves up the 400m to the summit to survey a nice, but not amazing panorama of Campbellton and the nearby bay. "Nice but not amazing" describes the rest of the coastal drive along the eastern shore towards the Confederation Bridge. The bright spot in the 3 days we spent in NB was Kouchibouguac National Park - a nice slice of sand dunes and marshes that boasts a very nice (and deserted in September) campground. We also enjoyed the Irving Eco-center, a 2km boardwalk in Bouchtouche which leads out onto a dune. Patches did not enjoy it as he had to be kenneled.

Wednesday afternoon we decided to try our luck on the island and crossed the 12km Confederation Bridge into PEI. We immediately felt better - red cliffs and cute houses, just as we'd been promised! In mere minutes we'd forgotten New Brunswick as we weaved along country roads towards the north coast and PEI National Park. Although quite small, PEI National Park (at least the eastern section) is nice. Great red cliffs along beautiful beaches. We even smuggled the dog down to the beach one morning so he could have a drink of the Atlantic Ocean.

Thursday we drove to Charlottetown to walk the historical waterfront and sample some Cows ice cream. Then it was back to New Brunswick (this time we had to pay to cross the bridge) and onward into Nova Scotia.

We drove along the northwestern shore stopping in Joggins for the fossil cliffs (and even found a fossil) and then in Cape d'Or to marvel at the massive waves and cliffs. We like Nova Scotia, the only negative being the gangs of raccoons that were roaming our campsite last night trying very hard to get into the garbage bins. Things got quite rowdy when another family of raccoons showed up and a fight began.

Today (Friday) we drove to Halifax to get an oil change and see the Citadel National Historic Site. We've learned that dogs in are allowed in the historic sites so even Patches got a tour. We arrived just in time to hear the noon cannon being fired right over top of our car as well as hear several pipers and drum players. The dog was less than thrilled with the drummers and tried to flee the site.

All is well with the car (except the clutch and a burned out licence plate light) so we're good to keep on driving. Currently we're holed up in our luxury accommodations (the Halifax area KOA), doing laundry and using the free WiFi. The weather is supposed to stay nice (highs in the low 20s!) and we're moving on to see the rest of the province starting tomorrow.

Out of Quebec

2007-09-17T10:05:00.000-06:00

After a very long drive from Sault to Sudbury (involving the worlds longest detour) we made it to Pembroke on Saturday night. The weather cleared up (no more snow!) and we had a relaxing drive from there to Montmagny, Quebec yesterday. This morning we woke up to brillant sunshine, drove the scenic route along the south bank of the St. Lawrence and crossed the border into New Brunswick just a few minutes ago. We're ready to start exploring!

South of the mighty Superior

2007-09-14T18:52:00.000-06:00

We're in Sault Ste. Marie, its been raining/snowing all day but has cleared off finally although I hear it might freeze tonight. We bought another sleeping bag at Canadian Tire yesterday with our wad of CT money, so we should be snuggly warm!

Off to Ottawa tomorrow...

Across the Great Seas of Wheat

2007-09-12T18:56:00.000-06:00

We've made it to Thunder Bay (for anyone tracking our progress), cruising through Sask, Manitoba and a bit of Ontario in the last 3 days. That's just over 2700km and just under 30 hours of car riding.

Its been pretty uneventful. We've caused quite the stir with the old folks in their motor homes who seemed very concerned that we're going to camp our way across the country but we haven't frozen yet (although it has been chilly!). We'll see how it goes as we get further east and it gets further into the fall.

Patches seems to be enjoying himself - especially last night when our campground mate fed him 3 hot dogs.

The plan is to spend tomorrow in TBay, relaxing and letting our sore bones recover from so much time in the car. We'll be on the road for Friday and Saturday finishing off northern Ontario and Quebec. Hopefully we'll be in the Maritimes by Sunday!

The Road Trip Begins!

2007-09-09T18:01:00.000-06:00

On Thursday we left Calgary and drove to Hinton to stay with my family and organize ourselves for further adventures. We've spent the weekend relaxing, packing and playing way too much frisbee with the dog. Its been a good break, and given us the chance to recharge before heading out on stage two of the road trip. Tomorrow we start out across the prairies to Thunder Bay, home of the sleeping giant and the Persian Man donut!

The WCT Trail

2007-09-05T19:12:00.000-06:00

I kicked off my 4 months of travel with a hike along the 75 km length of the West Coast Trail (WCT), located on beautiful Vancouver Island. This was my second trip along the trail, the first one being 7 years ago when I hiked it with my family. In comparison to that trip, our time on the WCT was a true vacation. We had wonderful weather and lots of time for relaxing.

We hiked the trail north to south (opposite of what I did the last time), getting the easy stuff done with heavy packs. The highlight of my first day was the huge sea lion colony we stopped to view. These massive male sea lions can be heard before they are seen and were quite entertaining.

Sea lions on the rocks

The following days were spent alternating between hiking on the lovely beaches and hiking in the forests on boardwalks or in the mud. Luckily for us, the sunshine kept the boardwalks almost usable and the mud to a minimum. During our first four days, we watched a pod of whales swim by one evening, basked in glorious sunshine and marveled at the giant trees.

Jenn on the shelf and a very nice looking section of boardwalk

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the trail conditions in the difficult last sections of the trail were no different than the previous days, and we had to spend only a portion of each day slogging through the forest. We were treated to beautiful beach views, interesting forest walks and a family of sea otters playing just offshore at one of the camps.

Beach view and me on the boardwalk

Overall it was an excellent hiking trip, worth the mud and the sometimes monotonous forested sections to see things not possible when hiking in the Rockies. We took several hundred photos, with my favorites being HERE and HERE.

England

2007-08-24T15:26:00.000-06:00

Jon spent about a week touring eastern England, his first trip to the island. As you can see, these are the things he did while practicing his British accent and testing new beers:

Storm over the north sea and the sun setting in Norwich

A manor and Steve and Gord and their pints

A castle and Jon's bedroom while away

Low tide at the salt marshes and wading birds

More storms and a parade

London

Argentina!

2007-08-21T22:24:00.000-06:00

Tickets were officially booked tonight - on October 16 we'll be heading to Argentina for some spanish-icecream eating-long bus riding adventures!

<- We're going to go see this first!

then we'll head over to see this ->

<- And then head down and see everything before we hit this too.

Cottage Time

2007-08-20T10:29:00.000-06:00

After my successful defense on Wednesday I ran around like a chicken without a head trying to fix my thesis, find someone to print it for less than $60 a copy and get it to the binders. By Friday afternoon I was rather frazzled and very much behind schedule. However, 2 days at the cottage was just what I needed to relax and focus on my new life post-graduate school. We swam, we ate and we got some sun: perfect!

Happy Birthday Me!

2007-08-14T10:37:00.000-06:00

Today I am legally able to rent a car from Budget in Alberta! Whooppee!

(This picture is here because I love Jon's hair. Ah, now that he is unemployed he can regrow his curly mane again. And he's going to have to because I may be disposing of all the leftover hair gel in the house very shortly.)

Its Really Happening!

2007-08-10T10:20:00.001-06:00

Over a year ago Jon and I first dreamed of quiting our jobs when I finished school and traveling the world. Today, Jon got on a plane bound for London, marking the beginning of our 4 months of freedom from work, school and life as we've been living it for the past 2 years. And, if my defense on Wednesday is successful, I'll be joining him in the life of leisure in just another week.

The plan? England for Jon for a week where he'll enjoy Norwich and the surrounding countryside. I'll hopefully be having a successful defense before heading to the cottage for a weekend of sun and fun. Then its back to our place to pack up all the items we've collected over the past two years and finish off the thesis (hopefully). August 24 we hit the road and then the trail for 8 days on the WCT. Jon needs another stab and scan before we load up the Impreza for a 5 week cross-country road trip starting in Calgary and stopping in Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland (we'll be passing through the prairies and Quebec but our limited time means nothing but a quick stop for gas and food). Then its back to Calgary sometime in October for, yes, another stab and scan before we go international with a trip to South America. We'll be back in December, hopefully still with some money in our pockets and a new plan in the works.

I'm a little nervous, life without a home or job does have its challenges. Its been a while since I lived on a budget, and we've never taken a 5 week road trip - with the dog. But we're both really looking forward to this and its sure to be an adventure!

Jonas Pass, Poboktan Pass and Brazeau Lake

2007-07-29T20:35:00.000-06:00

This was our big "training" trip for the West Coast Trail. The route we took was approximately 80 km, which is slightly longer than the WCT, and we covered it in 5 days. Its the longest hike I've done and was a lot tougher than we'd both thought it would be.

I'd say all the effort was worth it, the scenery was spectacular and for a "popular" hike we saw very few people on the trails. Other than two encounters with grouse we saw no wildlife and had no troubles on the trail. The weather co-operated and was sunny and warm the whole time. The only thing I would have done differently was carry less food - our packs were heavy!

Our first day we only took time for a few photos- we started the trail at 3:15 and had 14 km before camp. This is the upper Brazeau River valley. We camped at Four Point Campground which is located on the banks of the river.

On day 2 we wandered through Jonas Pass - a lovely alpine pass filled with flowers and surrounded by beautiful mountains and glaciers. Best part? Its fairly flat.

The downside to this beautiful valley is that the trail eventually leaves it and heads up 280 m to Jonas Shoulder. The climb was tiring at the end of a 19 km day, but we took time at the top to enjoy the views. We camped that night by a little creek with some amazing mosquitoes.

On day 3 we went up Pobaktan Pass, another gentle grassy slope. I loved my drinking tube and Jon loved taking pictures. We camped that night by Brazeau Lake, the nicest campsite on the trip.

Day 4 was a relaxing 18 km through another gentle river valley. We followed a branch of the Brazeau River upsteam back to the place we finished day 1. Excellent scenery and little elevation change, the best kind of days.

Day 5 we woke early and hiked back out Nigel's Pass to our car. We were very happy to reach our car before noon and enjoyed lunch on our tail gate.

The drive home was the craziest part of the trip. A driver passed us into on coming traffic up a blind hill, and had to drive on the opposite shoulder to avoid hitting anything. He then swerved across the two lanes of traffic, gained control and sped off. Later we passed a woman smoking a joint as she sped along the highway. We were very happy to be back in Calgary at our own home safe and sound!

An Update

2007-07-23T21:07:00.000-06:00

Life has been moving along at a breakneck pace for the MacDonalds. In fact, I can't even remember what we've been up to its all moved so fast. Now that we have some deadlines, it seems like things aren't going to slow down enough for us to get everything done.

We bought a new lens for our camera as a gift for Jon (it was his birthday money). If you thought he took a lot of photos before, you haven't seen anything yet. If you're into cameras, its a 50 - 300 mm, which on our camera is 75mm to 450mm. That's a lot more zoom that our other lens (its also a lot larger).
We ran in another 5Peaks race last Saturday. The swag was very good this time round: new merino wool socks, sunscreen, power bars and more coffee. As it would be, I earned myself another first and Jon got a second. I attribute my success to the Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs we ate for breakfast.

We also bought Jon a new sleeping bag. He was a little chilly last time we were backpacking and since we have about 13 days of backcountry left this summer we thought he could use a new one. He got a pretty nice down bag, its got a gortex shell and packs up super small.

I submitted my thesis to my committee today, so the exam has officially started. I plan to forget about my thesis for the next two weeks until I have to finish the presentation. I'm really excited to be done, I can't believe we'll finally get to move on to doing something new in just over a month.

Other than that, we're heading out to hike with the parents on Wednesday, it should be nice. We packed up our bags tonight and they actually weigh less than our last backpacking trip and they packed better. I guess the smaller sleeping bag, new stuff sacks and the small bowls really paid off. There will be pictures of that of course when we return on Sunday.

England... if your name is Jon

2007-07-16T12:32:00.000-06:00

Lucky Jon! We finally got around to booking tickets for his trip to England this August. While Jon is sampling British pub fare, I'll be here in Calgary slaving over my thesis...

Cross that off the life to-do list!

2007-07-15T21:27:00.000-06:00

One of my earliest memories of Jon and I as a couple involves shopping for tapes in Hearst during our first summer treeplanting. I only remember purchasing one tape, Mad Mad World by Tom Cochrane, and listening to it over and over again on the Walkman every summer.

Jon and I are no longer treeplanting, but we are still listening to Life is a Highway more than is healthy. Seriously, we love it. We still start every road trip by listening to it. Its become a bit of an obsession and attending a Tom Cochrane concert together got put on the life to-do list. So, when we found out that he was playing at Stampede and we were in Calgary, we just had to go.

The show was great, it didn't matter that it was hot, we had to stand for hours and the man in front of us kept smacking someone else's wife's butt. We got to hear Life is a Highway live, from the man himself.

D-Day!

2007-07-13T12:28:00.000-06:00

That's right, the defense date for my thesis has been set. August 15 is the big day, with the fun getting underway at 9am and lasting for a gruelling 3 hours.

Just a little over a month before I'm done! Yippy!

Valley of the 10 Peaks and Sentinal Pass

2007-07-08T21:49:00.000-06:00

This hike gets "Premier" status in our guidebook - and we understand why! Fantastic scenery for the whole 5.6 km to the pass makes it easily one of the most beautiful hikes we've done lately.

View of the glacier

A few of the 10 peaks

Sentinel Pass - the goal of our hiking trip and our lunch spot.

The way up was tough, but being able to ski down was worth it all. Jon had the best deal since Patches pulled him up and then pulled him down.

Moraine Lake - tourist attraction extraordinaire, but really beautiful. Patches was quite the hit with the tourists - especially one small child who had to be carried off kicking and screaming when he didn't want to leave the dog.

Turner Valley

2007-07-08T13:13:00.000-06:00

I spent this week in the beautiful town of Turner Valley, home of the historic Turner Valley Gas Plant. I find the plant pretty fascinating - all the old infrastructure is there and they are still flaring the original natural gas seep. The plant operated for about 70 years and until recently, visitors could tour the historic site.

Just some pictures of the site:

The scrubbing plant

Clouds over welding shop

The Horton Spheres

Plumbing Problems in the Wonder House

2007-07-02T22:39:00.000-06:00

After 4 day of smoke and sweat, Jon and I were ready for a shower and some clean clothes. Like the nice parents we are, we delayed our showers and laundry until after we'd picked up our dog and done groceries. I then gathered up our stinky clothes and happy loaded them in our washer. An hour later I went back down to the basement to check on my laundry and found myself on my ass in a large puddle of water at the foot of the stairs.

I wasn't hurt, and my first thought was "which dog peed this much? Disgusting" before realizing that no dog has that much pee in them. Jon heard my screams and came running down to lift me out of the puddle. We opened the laundry room door and stared at the water that was slowly filling our basement as our washer drained. It seems that the hole in the floor where water drains from our laundry system had backed up and the laundry water was spreading in a filthy wave across our storage room. Quickly we shut off the washer and set about moving dog food out of the way.

We mopped up almost all the water and Jon went upstairs to drain something in the bath tub. And the basement reflooded. It then occurred to us that perhaps the hole wasn't just used for the washer tub. We ran the shower, and then the kitchen sink and then flushed the toilet and sure enough, after each time, the water in basement rose up again. The problem was larger than I'd initially thought - not only was I not going to be able to do laundry, we couldn't shower, pee or do dishes.

Jon called our landlord, who then called her plumber, who then called us and said he was on his way. We then called Panago for two large cheese pizzas, delivery, to help us through it all.

The pizza arrived within an hour, but 3 hours later there was still no sign of Doug, our trusty plumber. Jon called the landlord, who then told us to call the city. Jon called the city, who said they'd call us back. And then, out of no-where, the plumber showed up.

After a quick look at the basement Doug decided he had none of the tools needed to fix the drain. He talked Jon's ear off in the mosquito infested outdoors and then got back in his plumbing van - and we were still unable to use our water.

Minutes later, as Jon and Shannon and I were bemoaning our poor luck, the City of Calgary Emergency and Trouble crew showed up and two very large men (one with a very large beard) went to the basement. Ten minutes later our problems were solved - if only someone had told us to call them sooner! Just as quickly as they had came, they were back in their truck and off to help some other poor schmuck.

So, now we can flush and run water as much as we want - although I'm a little too nervous to try too much. It was quite the end to our long weekend, and we're hoping that the trouble has all passed.

Hiking to Tombstone

2007-07-02T19:17:00.001-06:00

This weekend was our first backpacking trip of the season. We did the relatively easy hike to Tombstone campground in Kananaskis. Friday morning there was no rush to get out of Calgary, so Jon and I enjoyed a relaxing breakfast at Nellie's before heading out with the rest of the gang.

Our hike started off in the pouring rain, with all of us looking a little less than thrilled as we lumbered along with our packs. We stopped for lunch at Elbow Lake, which is only 1.3 km in but at the top of all the elevation gain for the hike. It wasn't as beautiful as last year, but still a nice sight.

Luckily, about a half hour later, the sun came up and we could enjoy the beautiful mountains surrounding us. The hike itself is along an old road, with very little elevation change. This makes for an easy and scenic 7.5 km trip.

We arrived in camp around 4 pm, set up and then settled down for some napping. We woke up in time for some rain and hail while cooking dinner, but luckily it didn't last for long. We enjoyed a camp fire with the free wood, but headed to bed as soon as the rain started again. Sometime during the night the wind picked up, blowing away the clouds.
Saturday was beautifully sunny, but with gale force winds (left over from the night before). It was unpleasantly cold and we huddled around the fire in the morning before heading out on a day trip to Rae Lake. It was sunny but cold at the lake where we stopped for lunch, but still beautiful. Like last time we'd been here, we got lost trying to find the trail out of the lake and ended up bushwacking our way back to the main trail.
The wind kept up right through the evening. Being too cold for anything else, we all spent the time huddled around the fire cooking apples (thanks to Erin and Andrew) and wishing the wind would stop. At least it wasn't raining!

On Sunday morning the wind was still blowing, but our hike to Tombstone Lakes took us into a pass and out of the worst of the winds. Upper Tombstone Lake was quite scenic, and we took our time with lunch, enjoying the sun and a break from the cold.

The afternoon was spent playing cards (if you're a girl) or participating in some sort of backpacking challenge that involved both distance and accuracy throwing with trekking poles and a round of golf (if you were a guy). Another evening around the campfire (we made good use of that free wood) before turning in.

Monday morning we managed to shove all our stuff back in our packs and we hiked out in beautiful weather (still with wind). We covered ground quickly and were back in our cars by 1 pm, ready to head home for a shower. It was a fantastic weekend (other than the wind), very relaxing and a nice break from the city.

Jon, Jenn, Ricky, Andrew, Ali, Mike, Mic, Andrew and Erin with Rae Mountain in the background.

Trail Races and Ulti Tourneys

2007-06-27T21:23:00.000-06:00

Last weekend was the K-100 Relay as well as an ultimate frisbee tournament here in Calgary. Like the keener I am, I felt like I should be participating in both!

Saturday I did my part for the K-100 team and ran leg 9 of the 10 leg relay. I thought I had a great run, I was faster than I thought I'd be and well, I survived. I was absolutely exhausted by the time I finished which was a good thing - had I been more aware of what was going one I might have been more concerned when I turned the corner before the last 300 m to find 4 rangers with large guns. Apparently they had scared a bear from the finish line into the bush on the trail - and then they lost it. More motivation to have a good finishing kick I guess!

I finished off the day with 4 cups of Gatorade and a veggie burger before driving home.

Sunday I played two games of ultimate (we lost both). My legs were definitely a little lead filled but I still had a great time and the weather was fantastic.

I was hoping for some photos of the race but alas, I didn't lug the large camera around so I am photoless. I will definitely have LOTS of photos of our up coming hiking weekend for my next blog!

Lazy Rainy Sunday

2007-06-17T21:57:00.000-06:00

Exhausted, Jon and I did very little today, which was very nice. Patches napped and Jon napped and I nearly napped. Jon is off to the field tomorrow for the rest of the week, so I baked him a few little treats... I tried a new recipe from a book Kate gave me years ago and they are pretty good!
And, we tried out the new game that Mike and Mic gave Jon for his birthday - Settlers of Catan, the Travel Edition. Its fun, unless you have huge hands. It should keep us occupied on our away from home adventures.

Running Fools

2007-06-16T16:29:00.000-06:00

This morning Jon and I got up early (early enough to walk the dog at 6:30 on a Saturday), loaded Shred into the car and headed to Jumping Pound Ridge for our 5.6 km 5 Peaks Race. It was cool and cloudy and none of us were thrilled to be standing in the rain in our spandex. However, run we did and after racers got spread out over the two courses, things were quite nice. I'd never been to Jumping Pound and even in the mist and rain it was pretty. I enjoyed myself and finished in less time that I thought.

While Mairi finished off her longer race, Jon and I enjoyed the race freebies (bagels, PB, oranges, juice and cookies) and admired our swag (t-shirts, Kicking Horse Coffee Beans and exotic power bars). Much to our surprise, when it came to handing out finish medals, both Jon and I were on the podium for our age categories: Jon came 3rd and I took first. We thought it was quite silly, as we haven't been training much but its possible that all the serious runners were busy with the longer distance leaving us our moment of glory.

Sadly, we did not bring our camera to document the moment, but once pictures appear on the website, I will be passing them on.

Cat Attack!

2007-06-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

Patches got attacked by a cat on our morning walk today. We all know this cat is crazy, every time we see it comes after us with fangs bared. Usually I just run. This morning I didn't see it in time and Patches went to sniff it. In a flurry of fluffed fur and claws, it attacked! Patches started to yelp and lay down on the sidewalk. I dropped my coffee and using my full body weight I was able to drag my dog along the sidewalk out of the cat's reach. I then grabbed my mug and dragged my dog another block before he gave up on trying to get back to the cat.

Patches is fine, I'm embarrassed that my dog got whupped by a cat and the cat is probably still hiding under that SUV waiting for us to pass by tomorrow morning.

Things have been slow...

2007-06-13T21:00:00.000-06:00

... around here lately.

Jon is home for the week for the monthly scan and stab (x-ray and bloodwork) and things are going really well there. No change is a good thing at this point!

We haven't been up to much. Playing ultimate twice a week really takes up week day free time and last weekend we just didn't do anything. We did look at buying a new camera lense but since it may have to come from Japan it could be a while before we get to try it out.

School stuff is just boring and since that is 50% of my life right now it leaves little room for exciting things. Soon though we will have lots of excitment (or at least things to keep us busy). Next weekend we're running a cross-country race and then the weekend after that I'm joining the family to run in the K100. The weekend after that is our first backpacking trip of the season, and of course it will require several well prepared backpacking meals (and all that dehydrating will keep me busy!).

Oooh, So You Think You Can Dance is on....

Moose Mountain

2007-06-02T21:19:00.000-06:00

This weekend was our first real hike of the season (it had a goal, and we achieved it). Ali sucessfully booked us onto the West Coast Trail (WCT) for the end of August, so we plan on spending the summer training with day hikes and backpacking trips. This was our first training exercise - an easy 14km round trip to the summit of Moose Mountain.

The weather was supposed to be hot hot hot, but thankfully it wasn't a scorcher on the mountain. The first part of the hike was realitivly easy - not much elevation change and a nice wide trail.

The trail to the first summit is a little steeper, but easily do-able. I was able to test out my new treking poles (very cool) as well as put a few uphill miles in my recently purchased boots. It wasn't that tough, but at some points I certainly felt like this!

The summit was much easier to hike this time 'round. There was a lot less snow than when we did it last October and we didn't need to drag Patches up - Brinkley and him led the charge up the hill. We signed the log book after climbing the last 400 m from the first summit to the true summit.And then enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and great view from the firewatch heli pad while eating lunch.

After lunch we headed back down (always much easier) and made it back to the Volvo just as the rain started to fall.

Furball No Longer

2007-05-28T18:10:00.000-06:00

The wonder dog got a haircut today.

A Weekend in the Wild(erness Park)

2007-05-27T20:11:00.000-06:00

After a very long week, Jon made it home from the field in time for us to hit the road for a weekend of camping at Bluerock, just west of Turner Valley. There was still snow left from Thursdays blizzard and we spent a chilly night in our new tent. Its fantastic, and will be even better when we aren't sharing it with the dog.

Saturday morning we woke early, mostly due to the chilly temperatures and some of it due to a dog who only sleeps until 6 am. Things warmed up by noon and we headed out to view the sites of the park, including Sheep Falls.

We also did a short hike to some bridge along some trail. There were lots of large bear tracks, but all we saw was four deer.
We spent the evening around the fire, eating pies and pizzas from the pie iron. Night two in the tent was much warmer and the dog even slept until 7 am.
Our very cool fire.
We drove home this morning, ready to head to work tomorrow as Jon is in the field and I still have that thesis hanging over my head. We spotted our first bear of the season just outside of our campground (a smaller black bear) but encountered no other wildlife.

The Mighty Milk

2007-05-21T19:38:00.000-06:00

This weekend was the second annual canoe trip, down the Milk River. Day 1 started off well, the sun came out and spirits were high. We did our 30 km without much effort. The wind picked up in the evening, but we still enjoyed a beautiful evening on the banks of the river.

Day 2 started alright, but the river was a little tougher than the first part, plenty of gravel bars and ripples to keep us on our toes. Ali and Andrew got dumped in the river early on but luckily they were unhurt. We all had our little incidents with gravel bars through out the day, but no one else had to take a swim.

It was a pretty long day, including a portage around a set of rapids. We all felt a little tired by the time we'd hit our day's destination. Luckily we made camp just as the rain and wind started and a quick meal improved everyone's spirits. Our canoe wind block worked surprisingly well, but soon after dinner had finished, the rain started up harder and we barely had time to shove a brownie (or three) in before sprinting for our tents.

It started out rainy on Day 3, and carried on for the next 5 hours while we paddled the last stretch of the river. Jon let me steer, which resulted in a lot of extra work for both of us, as he is a much stronger paddler and I spent the whole time compensating for it, while he had to do all the paddling. We arrived in Milk River just before we all lost feeling in our hands and feet, and thankfully our cars were waiting and we piled in and turned on the heat. Our journey was over! Jon and I celebrated with a double double (or it seemed to be a triple triple from the amount of cream in it) once we hit Lethbridge.

Overall we had a fantastic time, next year we'll just have to plan on having better weather! More photos available HERE.

Why Dogs Sniff Each Other's Bums

2007-05-18T11:49:00.000-06:00

(as told to me by an old Russian man at the off leash park this morning).

Me: "Good morning"
Old Man: something that I think was good morning
Old Man: says something else
Me: "Pardon?"
Old Man yells louder: "Has anyone ever told you why dogs sniff each other's behinds?"
Me: "Um, no..."
Old Man: "It goes back to Creation, God was talking to the dogs and one of them let a very loud one rip. God said "Who was that?", and none of the dogs answered. He asked again "Who did that?". When none of the dogs answered again he banished them from paradise saying "You can't come back until you find out which one of you did that"."
Me: nervous laugh "I've never heard that version before"

So my friends, dogs are sniffing each others' behinds not to say hello, but to figure out who farted in front of God.

Another Weekend

2007-05-13T21:05:00.000-06:00

After a very long and boring week in the office, we both rejoiced in our weekend freedom. We spent an awful lot of money at MEC on Saturday: new sandals for Jon, a new watch for Jenn, misc. camping items for our trip next weekend. Feeling very poor after all of that, we spent the rest of the day recreating and snapping photos of the flowers in our yard.

We also took Patches for some frisbee in the water. We bought him a floating frisbee for water activities this year and took it for a try. It doesn't fly as well as his new Kong one from M and M, but it won't sink when Patches is too lazy to retrieve it from the river.

At the end of it all, Patches is exhausted (thanks to Brinkley), we're exhausted (thanks to Patches) and we only have to make it through another 5 days in the office before its the long weekend!

Gardening

2007-05-06T21:53:00.000-06:00

We spent the weekend enjoying the beautiful sunshine! We bought new plants and redid our front garden.

Patches enjoyed the sun, and being out of the backyard all day.

I found these beautiful clay planters at Sunnyside Garden Center and filled them with herbs and flowers. Hopefully they bring lots of life and color to our garden!

San Juan de Sur and Managua

2007-05-06T21:19:00.000-06:00

The next morning we woke up with plans on catching the 10 am bus to San Juan, a town on the coast south of the beach we were at to spend our second last day there before making it to Managua for our monday morning flight. Jon and I woke up for one last swim but it seemed that dinner at crazy Dave's hadn't been as good for A and A as it should have been and both were quite sick. We made it to San Juan, where we found a hotel (quite a nice one) and left A and A there to recover while we explored San Juan. It took Jon and I all of 20 minutes to realize that it wasn't much but a strip of beachfront restaurants and a great icecream store. We spent the day sleeping and eating icecream until A and A felt well enough for dinner. Then Jon and I ate some more ice cream (it was HOT in San Juan) and I let him beat me at crib a couple of times.

The view of San Juan from our hotel balcony.

Sunday morning we got up early to catch the direct bus to Managua. After being assured that our bus was going direct, we boarded at 7 and proceeded to pick up people all the way through Rivas, and then Masaya and finally arriving in Managua. It ride itself wasn't bad, we had seats and the roads were paved, but it was too early in the morning to be jammed on an old school bus for twice as long as we'd been expecting.

Conveniently, the bus terminal in Managua is also the best craft market in Managua and we spent an hour picking up all the items we'd wanted to buy in Masay earlier in the trip. Jon and I purchased some cloth, a table runner, coffee, some local art and of course, a magnificent hammock. We loaded our treasures and took our last cab ride in Nicaragua.

We spent our last day lounging at the Best Western near the airport in one of the many pools. The next morning we boarded our flight and headed back home to Calgary.

The Best and the Worst of the Beach Life

2007-05-03T16:36:00.000-06:00

Surprisingly not too sore after our volcano climb, we all woke up wednesday morning with pleantly of time to spare before the old chicken bus came by on its route to the port city of Moyogalpa on Ometepe. Buses ran surprisingly well in Nicaragua, at least where we were. They were always running and our bus transfers always seemed to go off with out a hitch. This bus was no exception, and was only slightly later than the woman at our hotel had told us.

We arrived in Moyogalpa to learn that one of the ferries wasn't running and we would have to wait a couple hours before the second one left or take our chances on a smaller ferry. It was decided that we would wait and in an effort to get out of the hot sun, we headed for lunch. Lunch was two of the largest pizzas I've ever seen for $5 and although 4 of us tried our hardest, we were unable to eat them all.

Upon arriving back in Rivas, we negotiated a cab and all five of us squished in. Our cab driver navigated over bridges, around bridges and in the ditch along a dusty stretch of road to the ocean. Our destination was Bahia Mahagual but upon arrive at the beach, we learned that the resort we'd been heading for was closed and that we were actually on Playa Madera. No matter, it was a beach with beautiful sand and huge crashing waves. We managed to find two rooms in a beach front building on the nearly deserted beach and set about enjoying the sun and sand.

We spent three lovely days on the beach, sunning and surfing. The waves were a little too large for me, but the others swam and worked on their burns. We were served meals at a little beach shack, where the woman graciously made Jon and I a meat free option each night - deep fried cheese slabs!

On Friday, our last night on the beach (and also our first evening without Maarten), the lovely food shack woman packed up her stuff and headed into town, leaving us dinnerless! We went elsewhere in search of food and ended up at the only other place on the beach, Crazy Daves. We climbed up the cliff from the beach to his house, where we received a strange welcome involving a reenactment of what it sounded like when Dave had thrown a pot out of his house and down the hill. Only a little uneasy we agreed to stay for dinner, which seemed to be spaghetti. We were told we were waiting for a bunch of surfers who had seen Dave "rip a big wave" earlier in the day. Dave was indeed crazy, and regaled us with the same story of his big wave over and over again. One surf movie and a couple beers later, we were starting to wish that we'd never come when we were finally served our spaghetti, although there had been no sign of the surfers. The spaghetti was an interesting creation involving veggies, bread crumbs, an egg and curry seasoning (those who ate meat got the version with ground something in it). We ate as quickly as we could, paid for our over priced spaghetti and hurried down the beach to the safety of our little beach front home to enjoy our last evening by the ocean.

Ometepe

2007-05-02T08:46:00.000-06:00

Volcan Concepcion from the ferry

Ometepe is an island in Lago de Nicaragua. Its comprised of two volcanoes, the active Volcan Concepcion and the inactive Volcan Maderas. We caught a bus out of Granada to the town of Rivas, and then a cab to San Jorge, a small town on the shore of Lago de Nicaragua and the location of the ferry to Ometepe.

For me, the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride to the island was horrible. The lake is quite windy, whipping up waves that caused our ferry to slosh about. I was very thankful when the ferry docked on the island and I was able to stagger onto firm ground again. Our destination on the island was Playa San Domingo, home to the best beaches on the island and a strong sea breeze (according to Lonely Planet), also conveniently located near the trail head for Maderas, the volcano hike we'd decided on. Two buses later we were standing in front of the Casa Hotel Isiam staring at the beach. And having sand whipped into our faces by the very strong sea breeze. The beach itself was not a thing of beauty, but the water was warm and if you ignored the cattle drinking out of the lake (or the tanker parked on the shore) it was alright.

Volcan Maderas

The next morning we met at 7 am, loaded into the back of a pickup truck and headed to Maderas. Our group was joined by the interesting Igor as well as our guide, Alan. The hike started off fairly easy, wandering through scrubby brush but soon turned into a muddy uphill climb through a cool cloud forest.

Jon in the forest

Four hours later, we reached the peak of the volcano, looked out into the mist and headed down again into the crater lake for lunch. It was too misty to see the lake, except for a brief moment. Soon it was time to turn around and we headed back into the forest for the decent down. The return trip was un-remarkable until we neared the bottom of the trail and were treated to a troop of monkeys playing in the trees.

Monkey

We returned to our hotel in time to have a quick swim before the sun set. Exhausted from our hiking it was an early night, since we had plans of catching the first bus out of there the next morning.

Summer maybe?

2007-05-01T08:47:00.000-06:00

Its finally May, and that means I've only got 4 more months left of school! In past years today would have been the first day of summer for me, usually coinciding with the first day of treeplant and freedom from boring school for a whole 4 months. This year, like last year, it just means that the halls are a little quieter and my supervisor has more time to check and make sure I'm working.

With no effort on our part, two bunches of daffodils sprouted in our front garden over the weekend. The crocuses are also out in full bloom at the off leash park. It really makes me wish that I wasn't still inside!

We are currently trying to re-grow our back lawn and spent the weekend fencing off a section and seeding. I've checked every day since, but the lush green carpet I'm desiring hasn't appeared yet. Patches got his pool put out on Saturday and all three dogs have been enjoying the mud bath created in the backyard.

We got a little bit of ulti playing in this weekend and Patches showed off his skills. He getting quite good at catching the frisbee. (thanks to Mic for taking the shots!).

2007-04-29T21:04:00.000-06:00

Pictures of Nicaragua are up HERE.

Caught in the Act!

2007-04-27T08:36:00.000-06:00

This morning as we were brushing out teeth, our sort of cat strolled into the bathroom, yowled a few times and then jumped into the toilet.

2007-04-26T11:09:00.000-06:00

Travel entries will be posted on the date they happened! So please scroll down to read about Nicaragua starting April 14.

Pictures will be up soon!

Home!

2007-04-23T22:01:00.000-06:00

After a wonderful 10 days away we have returned to Calgary (and work). Once we get things re-organized at home, I'll be posting more pictures and tales of our adventures in Nicaragua. But for now we're home safe and sound (much to Patches enjoyment!) and definitely enjoyed our time away :)

Masaya and the Volcano

2007-04-15T18:02:00.000-06:00

Masaya, located about 40 min from Granada, is known for its markets. Its also known for its active volcano, Volcan Masaya. In the same day we made two separate trips to Masaya to see both of its attractions.

We started in the morning by catching the same bus we took on our last adventure, we even got the same bus driver. After some confusion in Masaya (and a popsicle to cool down) we found the second of the two markets in town, which is nicer, cleaner and made for tourists. The market was nice and quiet, but a little too expensive for those of us on a budget. We admired the beautiful hammocks (something which Nicaragua is known for) and oil paintings of Nicaragua, which we decided that we'd have to purchase closer to the end of our trip.I bought a new purse (ok, large bag) and we sat down for what might have been the longest lunch I've ever experienced.

After lunch we headed back to the less touristy market to make a few small purchases (from the stall below) and then hoped on the return bus to Granada.

Back at our hotel we had time for a quick shower before heading off to see Volcan Masaya, at night! We'd booked the tour the day before with Tierra Tour and were joined by two other Canadians and a couple from Seattle. Our evening tour would include viewing the crater before the sun went down, a trip into a lava tube and a chance to view the lava at night. Our air conditioned mini-bus took off only slightly later than promised and we once again drove the highway towards Masaya.

The volcano, which is the most active in the region, is easily assessable by car. You can drive up through an old lava field, walk 50 m to the low wall and stare into the crater. For your safety, a sign explains, you should only spend 20 minutes in the crater area. The crater billows gases and steam, which apparently protects a colony of green parrots, who nest inside the crater. Although dusk is supposed to be the best time of the day to see them, only a dozen or so were spotted.

On the night tour, our guide explained, we would get the chance to visit parts of the park not usually assessable to day tours. This included a trip up a set of stairs (under construction) to see the cross planted by a Spanish priest, who thought this was the gate to hell. The view from the top was nice, and you could see across the fields of old lava to the edge of the original crater.

We did a few more hikes, to see an extinct crater and a view of the lake (only using paths marked with "do not enter" signs) before driving to the trail that would lead to the lava tunnels. Always safety conscious, we donned hard hats (with chin straps) and were issued flashlights. Then we followed our guide down the path to the entrace.

The lava tunnel was large and dark and home to hundreds of bats, all who weren't too thrilled with our entrance into their home. We followed the tunnel 150 m into the ground, listening to the sounds of bats and trying to catch them in our flashlight beams.

Andrew got nicked by a bat, creating the joke (funny at the same): "What sound does a bat hitting Andrew make?" Answer: *sound of Andrew screaming like a girl*. (ok, so Andrew didn't really scream like a girl, but its funnier that way).

We exited the lava tunnel, returned our hard hats and flashlights and got back in our van for our last stop of the night. We were issued gas masks, which our guide assured us were really not needed tonight. Then, by the light of his flashlight, he lead us through the dark to the edge of the crater, and, warning us not to get to close, let us all lean over the edge and view the glowing lava below.

After getting our fill of the glowing lave we again got into the airconditioned van and drove back to Granada.

Granada

2007-04-14T08:35:00.000-06:00

The first stop on our trip was the beautiful colonial town of Granada, located at the northern tip of Lago de Nicaragua (the largest lake in Central America). It was an excellent start to our adventures: clean, easy to navigate and conveniently located with a view of the volcanoes.

On our first morning we wandered around taking photo after photo of the brightly colored buildings and beautiful churches near the city center.

This is the town center of Granada. We ate our first breakfast in Nicaragua at a little cafe just to the left of this building.

Granada Cathedral. Very large and very yellow. And I imagine very hot once its packed with people. We did wander in to see the insides, which were nice but I think I like the outside better.

After only a few hours we decide that it was too hot to stay in the city and headed to Laguna de Apoyo. The Laguna is really a crater lake in an extinct volcano, approximately 30 min by public bus from Granada. Our hostel was located fairly close to the "bus stop" and since the bus driver's assistant's only job is to call out the destination whenever the bus spots people, it was fairly easy to catch a bus for the first leg of the trip. We each paid our 9 Cordobas (about $.50) and repeated our destination to the driver enough times for him to remember to tell us to get off the bus at the right spot. The lake, of course, is located at the bottom of a very large hill, which, of course, isn't served by public transit. But luckily for us, we only had to wait about 15 min for some locals to flag us down a ride to the bottom of the crater.

We spent the afternoon at a little restaurant on the lake edge relaxing and swimming. Much cooler than a day in the city!

On the way out, a nice group of university students from Managua stopped for us and gave us a lift to the top of the crater (for free no less!) where we were able to catch a bus back to Granada.

That evening we went out to try the local food at a small street vendor near our hotel. Dinner consisted of BBQed chicken, fried plantain and a spicy cabbage salad served on large leaves, all for less than a couple of $ each. The street vendor ran a very popular stop, sort of like a drive through, where people in cars would pull up to her BBQ and order dinner to go.

We finished off the night with a drink at a local bar before heading back to our hostel for some much needed sleep.

Departure

2007-04-12T08:55:00.000-06:00

After several long months of waiting, its finally travel time! I'm really looking forward to our 9 days in Nicaragua. We've got a rough itinerary worked out which should involve some volcanoes and some sun and sand. I love markets, so hopefully I'll get to visit a few and try out my barganing skills in spanish.

We packed last night and managed to fit everything into two smaller packs with room to spare. I don't think we've overpacked (although there are a lot of power bars in there), and hopefully we haven't forgotten anything! My only concern is that I may run out of reading material (I only packed two books) but my mother introduced me to Bookcrossing.com last night so perhaps I'll be able to catch a wild book.

Should be a fantastic trip! Check back in 10 days for photos of our adventures. Hasta luego!

Easter Weekend

2007-04-08T18:04:00.000-06:00

Its been a busy weekend for the MacDonald family. We both worked Friday, which means we get monday off, which means although it feels like the weekend is over, we still have one glorious day left!

Yesterday we accomplished almost the last items on our to-do list for our trip. Other than a call to our credit card company, I think we've got everything covered. Not too many days left until we'll be in Nicaragua!

Today was the first day in a long time that the weather has been really nice. We took advantage of the sunshine and spent the morning wandering in Weaselhead Park.

Patches enjoyed the snow, in only a way that Patches can.

I examined some of the river rocks while Jon and Patches skipped them.

These ducks flew by...

And then so did this guy!

He saw us waving at him, so he circled back around a lower elevation so we could see him more clearly.

Using kibbles, we convinced some chickadees to feed from our hands.

Patches enjoyed the watchable wildlife (he's watching some geese swim down the river).

Memories

2007-04-05T11:00:00.000-06:00

I spent the best and the worst days out on the block. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed those years of my life lately, but I came across some photos of treeplant our last year there and they brought it all back.

These photos come from a collection by another planter Hugh (you can see many more at http://www.hughstimson.org/gallery/main.php).

Jon: parking lot in Grande Prairie after what I can only guess was a long shift.
Me, sitting in my favorite spot (the van after a long day) and pretending like I know how the radio works.

Since we can't afford a new house

2007-03-30T18:19:00.000-06:00

After 5 years of service, our old MEC Wanderer tent has started to show its age. Its also started to show its weight and size on some of our backpacking trips. We're not very big, we don't need a 3 man unless we are treking around with our four legged friend.

So we decided to upgrade, and this summer we will be spending our wilderness nights in the Exped Venus II. Since our lawn is a lot soggy and a little poopy, we did the first set up in our living room just to make sure we'd gotten all the pieces.

Its going to take us a little while, but I'm sure we'll get faster at set up. It will also help when we have a little more space, and the dog is not laying on the tent. We have one piece that we're still not sure where it goes, its supposed to be a gear sling for one of the vestibules, but we haven't figured out how it attaches.

Initial tent review (based on living room set up):

Set up should be easy since you set the tent and the fly up together
Lots of room for us, even sitting up
Two vestibules, a must for Jon
Lovely yellow color on the inside makes us happy
Not sure how we feel about the exoskeleton design (poles sleeves are on the outside)
It looks huge, but that could just be our living room

I'll be re-evaluating how I feel about it once we try it out. If the weather ever improves, perhapps we'll get to use it!

Finally Friday!

2007-03-30T08:54:00.000-06:00

The sun came up this morning with quite a nice display of colors. I popped out in my bathrobe to try and snap a few photos before heading off for my dog walk.

Bow Valley Provincial Park

2007-03-25T12:33:00.001-06:00

Jon and I took advantage of the nice weather on Saturday to do a bit of exploring near Kananaskis. The original plan had been to drive to Crowsnest Pass to see the Frank Slide, but a late start made us reconsider. Instead we drove to Bow Valley Provincial Park, which is just north of the highway right before Canmore.

The park has a series of self guided interpretive trails which take the visitor to several small features withing the park including a moraine lake, some bubbling springs and a walk along a moraine. While I wouldn't consider any of the them hikes, it was certainly a nice walk around the park. We saw only a few people while we were there, and that was confined to the parking lots.

2007-03-23T21:54:00.001-06:00

Barking

I've started a new Flickr account to upload photos from our new camera to. I can't promise they will be of exciting things, but perhaps you'll find some artistic merit in them.

Seagulls, at night?

2007-03-23T09:27:00.000-06:00

What was up with the birds last night? It was almost scary the number of seagulls flying over our house after 10pm. And they were loud, we could hear them even while we were safely tucked in bed (out of the way of seagull droppings). Before falling asleep we asked ourselves: why are they flying at night? Where are they going?

Using Google this morning I came across mostly irrelevant pages on a Spanish horror film called "Night of the Seagulls" (which got poor reviews in case you were interested and doesn't seem to have anything to do with seagulls but instead involves zombie knights of some sort).

After trying a few better search terms (not involving "seagulls" and "night") I came across several pages explaining the migration habits of birds. The USGS has this publication here about when birds migrate which explains why they are flying at night.

So at least I know what they were up to now, althought I'm still not clear on where they were all headed.

Midweek Post

2007-03-22T10:27:00.000-06:00

I really have nothing new that is blog-worthly. But blogging beats working on my thesis. Not that my thesis is going badly, its just boring. I think the sunshine is the problem today. Like Patches, I want to go outside and frolic. Sadly, my thesis is not on frolicing in the sunshine and doing such an activity would be make no closer to getting out of here. But its nice to dream.

New Toys

2007-03-19T08:55:00.000-06:00

Jon and I bought a new SLR camera this weekend (I think we buy something new every weekend). After much deliberation, and a reality check with the budget, we settled on the Pentax K10D instead of the Cannon EOS 30D. We've got a compact Pentax already, and its give us good results so we thought we'd give one of their fancier models a go.

After only 1 afternoon testing out the new gear, I'd have to say we're pretty happy with it. We're mostly shooting in dummy mode still, but have moved on to playing with aperture and shutter speed a little. Its a pretty easy camera to get the hang of and with 10 megapixals, the images are going to look alright regardless of what we do.

The downside to such a camera is the large bag that I am required to carry since Jon thinks it looks silly on him. I think it looks silly too, but it is practical for carrying things in.

For now we are mostly photographing our neighborhood and our dog. Patches seems to enjoy modeling and will probably learn to get very exited by the sound of the shutter clicking. But the images are beautiful and we can't wait to take it out into the mountains on our adventures this summer.

An Update

2007-03-16T09:27:00.000-06:00

Its been a pretty typical week at the MacDonald house. Monday we ran, tuesday was Spanish, wednesday was mac and cheese night with Carole and thursday I worked until 8pm.

My stocks went up $0.70 (in total), that about at 0.02% increase in value. I''ll probably be able to retire and live off them real soon.

After a couple of unsuccessful weeks I have finally been able to secure a place to stay for our first few nights in Granada. With only 4 weeks to go, I don't think I actually have that much left to arrange or find.

Jon has been busy brewing beer and we will be bottling the cerveza this weekend along with the vino blanco. We sampled the red wine on Saturday and since no one has come down with an mystery illnesses and between Mike and Jon the bottle got finished, I'll have to declare it a success.

In other news, our neighbor, Mr. Sunshine Car, has upgraded. He seems to have replace his custom detailed camry for a mint green honda CRV. At first we weren't sure if he'd simply moved out but after observing how the CRV has been parked (he can't park), and peeking into the windows to see that it is indeed filled with junk we concluded that he had simply bought a new car. It was confirmed this morning when I saw him get in and start the new car. As for the sunshine car, my theory is that is got a few flat tires and without his trusty bicycle pump handy to pump them up, Mr. Sunshine Car simply had to abandon it.

Out with the Old

2007-03-12T08:22:00.000-06:00

After 8 years of service to me, and several more before that for my parents, I have retired my trusty old down sleeping bag and upgraded. I'll be spending the summer snuggled in my new Diamond Spring bag. I'd wavered about buying the bag, not sure if I wanted another down bag given one disastrous night on the Westcoast Trail where I slept cold and damp. But since it was still 25% off 3 months after first looking at it, I took that as a sign that I was meant to own it and bought it yesterday. Plus, down is just so snuggly! I then had to go celebrate by eating french fries dipped in a frosty dairy dessert from the Wendys across the road.

Weekend Rush

2007-03-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

Another busy weekend has come and gone. It amazing how much and how little you can get done in two days.

We shopped (and I got a great pair of shoes), we enjoyed the nice weather and we ate takeout. We watched "Niagara Motel", which made us both laugh and then watched "Accepted", which also made us laugh.

We did our taxes, and thanks to new government legislation, I actually made less than the minimum taxable income.

We bought new shelves and organized our spare room (for about the 3rd or 4th time since we moved in).

Patches got what seems to be an ingrown whisker. If its not one thing, its another.

Home Sweet Home!

2007-02-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

Jon and I returned from Ontario Saturday evening after an exhausting week back east. We spent the first half of the week with family in Kitchener area and then took tuesday to head north to the beautiful town of Bancroft. Then we traveled to Toronto for the rest of the week. Exhausting...

We are glad to be back in Alberta and relaxing in our own place again. I think Patches is very glad that we are home again although he did enjoy his week with Auntie Mairi, Mike and Mic.

We are not glad to be heading back to work tomorrow but it is only 6 more weeks until vacation again.

Traveling to...

2007-02-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

Ontario! So its not exactly an exotic location and its definatly not going to be sun and surf at this time of the year, but it should be a nice break from work.

In the next week we're doing a whirlwind tour of Banden, Cambridge, Bancroft and Toronto. I'm looking forward to Chinatown and Kensington - I haven't been in a few years. Should be a good visit with the family as well.

The ipod

2007-02-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

Jon and I bought an ipod the other day. Now, I realize that most people have one (ok, most people I know do, not in a global sense) but this was a big step for the MacDonalds. Jon never made it out of the walkman era into the diskman era before it was already over.

We assumed that it would be a simple process to purchase such an item. We went to Future Shop, where we're sure they sell many everyday and must want you to purchase items like that, since that is how retail stores stay in business. I guess we were just naive because the staff there sure didn't want to help us purchase anything.

The major problem was, once we arrived at the store, we realized they were discounting all the ipods that had lost their boxes, or had been opened. And there is nothing we like better than a deal. So, instead of purchasing the pre-boxed-like every other ipod, we insisted on looking at the sale items. But we never found a sales clerk willing to open the ipod display case and let us look at them, any of them really. After trying two different sales clerks, who both said they couldn't open the case that they keep all the ipods in (if the sales clerks don't have the keys, then who does?), we gave up and left. I'm not sure about the other 3 people who had clustered around the case with us, presumably to buy an ipod as well. Perhaps they had better luck...

Next stop was Best Buy, where we found the same problem. This time though, Jon cornered a sales assistant who looked about 12 and intimidated him into finding someone who could open the case. They were quite insulted that I wanted to inspect the merchandise before purchase and seemed to think that I may actually have been trying to steal the ipods (the sales guy wouldn't actually let me hold the plastic bags that they keep them in, I could inspect from a distance). If the thing hadn't been so cheap I may have given up earlier.

End of the story is that we finally convinced the sales clerk to sell us a 1GB nano (last years model) for about $50. So, we're not quite at the cutting edge of ipod technology, but its a step up from our boombox.

Ouch, that hurt!

2007-02-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Jon and I spent the majority of the afternoon being poked, prodded and jabbed by the medical profession.

It started with a trip to the travel clinic for shots and other items. I thought there would be the usual two week wait for an appointment, so when I called last week I very surprised that we could get in so early. I hate getting needles but I imagine I'd hate getting HEP A more, so I allowed Nurse Evil to stab away. The good news is that we're in the clear for most everything now, with only tetanus, typhoid and yellow fever to be redone in the next 4-7 years. The bad news is that we both left the clinic with sore arms and poorer by $500. After spending that kind of cash we will have to travel a lot more!

We then went to see Jon's specialist where yet another doctor got to prod away at Jon. All is still well there (thank goodness) and we won't need to go back for another month. While we were at Foothills we stopped by the labs for a few x-rays (for Jon) and blood work for both of us (routine for Jon, some sort of torture my physician prescribed). It took two nurses (?) who appeared to have just graduated high school, to successfully remove 4 little vials of blood from me. Lucky for them I did not pass out during the procedure. I am hoping my doctor never recommends this again.

We spent the rest of the evening walking the dog and moaning about our sore arms. Thankfully, this is it for me for needles and Jon, well, he'll just have to toughen up.

Weekend in Review

2007-02-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

Nicely, this weekend felt like it took a very long time. Friday I went for a run - Patches enjoyed racing up and down hills at the off leash park and I enjoyed not having to hold on to him. Jon completed a bowl with lid at wood turning class.

Saturday started out with a trip to Home Depot - every home repair project requires at least two trips to get everything. We also stopped by the carpet store near our house and Jon was given 8 free carpet samples. Using those and the wood we bought from the discount bin at HD, we managed to create a very nice scratching post for the cat. Project number two was a wine bottle drying rack.

We spent the afternoon geocaching near Bearspaw Dam and then relaxing on the couch with some spicy curry soup.

Sunday morning we went for a run - a little chilly but beautiful with the snow falling on the trees. We followed that up with a trip to Sportscheck where we purchased new winter jackets. I haven't owned a real winter jacket in years - hopefully it provides warmth for the next few months of winter on those long walks with dogger.

The rest of the day was spent bottling wine batch #1. We've got 15 bottles in bottles and another 15 in a mini-carboy "aging for improved flavour".

Other exciting weekend events including practicing Spanish for class on Tuesday night (we are currently learning numbers, dates, time and the weather) and grocery shopping.

Becoming Davis

2007-02-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

This morning, as I stirred green powder into my orange juice, I had a vivid mental image of our friend Davis drinking spirulina smoothies and smiling at me from across the table with teeth coated in green slime. I then looked down at what I was about to drink and thought "I've become Davis".

Nicaragua Bound!

2007-02-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

Its for real, we're heading to Nicaragua in April for 11 days! Volcanoes, a huge freshwater lake, a break from work... should be lots of fun!